海角大神

On tap for today鈥檚 Monitor Daily: Answers from the new report on聽FBI鈥檚 Trump investigation,听strains in NATO, college education and聽the search for meaning, language lessons from聽French Jews and Muslims, and聽emojis for West Africa.

But first, truly electrifying news. The Tennessee Aquarium has a display that uses an electric eel to light up a Christmas tree. The lights flicker when it sends out an extra big jolt. There have been other Christmas-lighting electric eels in the past from Tokyo and Vancouver to Sandy, Utah. But none of them has managed to garner the attention that Miguel Wattson is generating down in Chattanooga. Everyone is reporting on the eel, er, knifefish. Maybe it鈥檚 the name: Wattson is spelled W-A-T-T-S-O-N. Or maybe it鈥檚 because he roars. Sensors in the water monitor the eel鈥檚 electrical discharges and deliver the big ones to a set of speakers.

But I think the biggest reason for his popularity is because he tweets. Miguel isn鈥檛 the aquarium鈥檚 first animal on Twitter. Chattanooga Chuck did it for years around Groundhog Day. But eel tweets are particularly charged: like SKA-TOW and ZING!!!!!! Once in a while staffers will throw in a bad pun or weak joke, like 鈥淚鈥檓 not slippery; I鈥檓 frictionally challenged.鈥� For the most part, though, Miguel keeps it real. And there鈥檚 something particularly soothing these days about a Twitter feed where the biggest zingers amount to BUZZ!!! and SKA-TOW!!!